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Lobbying Pact Puts Manatt at Center of Jamaican Political Storm

Posted by Brian Baxter

Last August, federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed an
indictment against Christopher "Dudus" Coke charging the Kingston,
Jamaica, businessman with conspiracy to distribute drugs and illegal firearms.
In laying out the case against Coke, the indictment cited, among other things,
evidence from seven telephone conversations that allegedly captured the accused
drug lord discussing the sale of guns, marijuana, and cocaine in New York and
Jamaica.

A press release accompanying the indictment described
Coke, 40, as the longtime leader of "an international criminal
organization known as the 'Shower Posse,'" and noted that the U.S. Justice Department considers him among "the world's most dangerous
narcotics kingpins." The release went on to quote U.S. attorney for
the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara as calling Coke's indictment
"another important step in our bringing to justice the world's most
dangerous criminals, wherever they may be found."

It hasn't been that easy. More than seven months after
the indictment was unsealed and Jamaican authorities were asked to hand Coke
over, he has yet to be extradited to the U.S. The delay--and questions about
what exactly is behind it--has touched off a political firestorm in Jamaica. And
a $400,000-a-year contract to lobby U.S. officials on behalf of the Jamaican
government has put Manatt, Phelps & Phillips squarely in the middle of that
storm.

An annual U.S. State Department report on the global drug
trade published March 1 lends credence to the opposition's theory. Without
identifying Coke by name, the report says, "Jamaica's delay in processing
the U.S. extradition request for a suspected major drugs-and-firearms
trafficker with reported ties to the ruling party highlights the potential
depth of corruption in the government."

It was also in March that PNP members first publicly
questioned whether Manatt was aiding Golding's effort to stymie the
extradition. Their ammunition: documents filed with the Justice Department
under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that show the firm agreeing to
lobby U.S. officials on behalf of the Jamaican government under a deal brokered
by a Kingston-based private attorney named Harold Brady.

None of Manatt's Jamaican FARA filings refer explicitly
to the Coke case--or any other specific matter. What the documents show is a
relationship that began within a month of Coke's indictment, resulted in Manatt
attorneys having five separate contacts with U.S. officials on unspecified
"treaty issues," and ended about a month before Golding's political
enemies started to make an issue of the arrangement.

Manatt first notified the Justice Department of its
lobbying efforts on behalf of Jamaica in a FARA filing dated October 13, 2009. The
filing, signed by international trade partner Susan Schmidt, states that the
foreign principal it is representing is the "Government of Jamaica through
Harold C.W. Brady of Brady and Co." The filing further states that the
firm "will be speaking with members of the Executive Branch to provide
information on issues regarding existing political and economic matters,
including existing treaty agreements between Jamaica and the U.S."
Existing treaties between the countries include pacts covering extradition and
mutual legal assistance.

Attached to the filing is an unsigned six-page engagement
letter addressed to Brady dated October 1, 2009, and identifying founding firm
partner Charles Manatt as its author. (A copy of the same engagement letter, this one signed by a representative of Brady's firm, is attached to a subsequent Manatt FARA filing.)

The engagement letter reaffirms, that in exchange for fees of $100,000-per-quarter, the firm
"will represent and advise Brady and Co., Attorneys-at-Law...in connection
with political and economic matters, including existing treaty agreements
between Jamaica and the U.S."

A subsequent FARA filing, dated February 4, 2010, shows that
Brady had already paid Manatt close to $50,000 on September 18, 2009--the only
payment the firm reported receiving under the agreement. The February filing
also shows that Manatt's lobbying efforts amounted to three meetings, a phone
call, and an e-mail exchange with a total of three government officials-two
from the State Department and one national intelligence officer-over
unspecified "treaty issues."

The three Manatt partners identified in the FARA filings
as playing a role in the Jamaican lobbying effort--Manatt, Schmidt, and
litigation partner Kevin DiGregory--either declined to comment or did not return
calls when contacted by The Am Law Daily. The firm's managing partner and CEO
William Quicksilver also did not respond to a request for comment. Manatt
spokesman Lawrence Martinez offered the following statement: "Client
confidentiality is of utmost importance to the firm. We will not discuss our
relationship with our client."

As an added wrinkle, Golding and Jamaica's solicitor general, Douglas Leys,
have acknowledged, according to reporting by the Jamaica Gleaner (here and here), that a Manatt attorney, at Brady's suggestion, did sit in on
one meeting Leys had with U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., on the Coke
matter, but only to familiarize himself with the relevant issues in case his
services were required in the future.

(Coke, meanwhile, has tapped Tom Tavares-Finson,
one of Jamaica's top defense attorneys, to represent him.
Tavares-Finson, who also happens to be a government-appointed senator
and member of the JLP's electoral commission, declined to discuss Manatt's alleged involvement when contacted by The
Am Law Daily.)

Asked to confirm whether Manatt
lawyers met with government officials to discuss the Coke extradition, State
Department spokesman Fred Lash declined to discuss specific cases. Lash did
say, "It would be a routine matter to discuss it, because anytime there is
an immigration or extradition type of case, that's where we get involved."
(A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the Coke case. A
spokeswoman for Bharara's office also declined to comment beyond the press release announcing Coke's indictment.)

Marc Mukasey, head of Bracewell & Giuliani's
white-collar and criminal defense practice and a former chief of the narcotics
unit at the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, notes that it's not uncommon
for extraditions to drag on for years and that Jamaica can pose special challenges.

"There is this rule of comity in Jamaica that
essentially says, 'If it's not a crime here in Jamaica, we're not going to
extradite you for it,'" says Mukasey, who has no personal knowledge of the
Coke case but handled several high-profile extraditions involving Jamaican
defendants while he was a federal prosecutor. Still, he says, "I certainly
think that the Southern District prosecutors are good enough that if they say
they have probable cause and a grand jury indicted the guy, I'd go with that."

Mukasey adds that in his experience it would be highly
unusual for an outside firm to get involved in an extradition case on behalf
of a foreign government.

"I've never heard of a private firm being hired by a
foreign government to fight a U.S. extradition," says Mukasey, the son of
former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey. "U.S. firms fight
extraditions all the time on behalf of individual defendants--think of Roman
Polanski--but not by advising the foreign sovereign." (As it happens,
Manatt represented Polanski in his bid to overturn the conviction that prompted him to flee the U.S. more than three decades ago.)

This is not the first time Manatt has represented the Jamaican government.
Indeed, the firm's first FARA filing on record, from 1985, was on behalf of the
country.Other countries the firm
has lobbied for over the years include Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ukraine, and the
Dominican Republic. The latter country--where Charles Manatt, a former
Democratic National Committee chairman, served as U.S. ambassador from 1999 to
2001--is the only foreign government for which the firm is currently acting as
an agent.

That's because in a March 18 FARA filing made two days
after Golding's political foes first questioned the government's ties to
Manatt, the firm informed the Justice Department that it had "ceased
activities on behalf of the Government of Jamaica through Harold C.W. Brady of
Brady and Co. as of February 8, 2010."

Comments

The real issue is the use of electronic telephone intercepts as a foundation for extradition requests.

The extradition debacle involving Christopher "Dudus" Coke is not so much about the notorious Tivoli mega-businessman with umbilical linkages to the JLP, but it is primarily about the self interests of leading JLP activists - some being Members of Parliament, some senators, some prominent persons and financial czars.

Can you imagine the potential devastation of such recordings being made public? It would be off the Richter scale - a political earthquake triggering a tsunami of resignations and arrests.

I am asking anyone to help me and my fellow Jamacans to find out one thing, "who paid the law firm the fifty thousand dollars" this is the key to all the problems of finding the truth. This man is much more dangerous than his late father, we all remember what happen when his father was set free in the Jamaican courts for murder, could some one tell us the real truth.

Excellent article. Well researched with a balanced presentation. Unlike my country man JA Cynic (who usually posts insightful comments on some of our Jamiacan newspaper articles) I don't think the issue is the telephone wiretaps. The relationship between certain JLP representatives and the "business man" is highlighted by the satellite footage obtained by the Justice Department. The real issue is the evidence Mr. Coke might reveal if and when he is extradited. It is rumoured that he has deposited a cache of documents with a well known Jamaican law firm which are to be published in the event of his untimely death. These documents will no doubt be used as leverage to bargain in any US proceedings. It would be foolhardy and naive to believe that Mr. Coke is the mastermind behind the myriad of allegations levied against him. There are strong suspicions that the incumbent political party along with some of its key members ought to be joint defendants on the indictment. I love my country but fear for what will happen if this type of activity does not stop.